Teddy Bears
by Reno Spiegel
Summary: Rude takes a late-night mission...and has a sudden change of heart.


Author's Note: Just a random thing that popped into my head last night thinking about what Rude's past would've been like. Hope it's enjoyable enough.  
  
-  
  
Teddy Bears  
  
--  
  
For LaTonya  
  
--  
  
Reno Spiegel  
  
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I knew immediately, he wasn't afraid because I'd just come in through his window, because he was under his covers and I had been completely silent coming in. Form the nightlight under the table, I could see a corner stuffed with teddy bears and other things. Must have been a kids' room, was my first thought. Even when he peeked out and looked at me, he didn't seem more afraid. Of course, it was probably natural to see your window up, curtains fluttering around a man in a suit with sunglasses on.  
  
I could hear grunting in the next room over -- guess the walls were thin -- and once in awhile a squeak of a spring or a smack of a headboard. No shock what was happening over there. After tapping into the wires at the Junon Force Station, we heard the report of a child abuse call. We tailed the Force here, and the man and woman dismissed them, saying they had no child, this heard by me from the bush I was hidden in.  
  
I tracked the screams and sobs to this room, outside the window. Waited half an hour after they had died down, and then my partner boosted me in through the window. That was where I stood, watching the shuddering lump beneath the covers and hearing the now-moans from the wall to my left. The kid had seen me. Tseng's orders were, if seen, basically wipe the house of anything breathing, on any mission.  
  
I'd come back later.  
  
I should mention, Turks don't often drop in on the Force's work, only when there's some real bastard out there doing something. You know, a rapist, a child abuser, someone holding a hostage for weeks on end, shit like that. Anything that involved torture of a nice, innocent person. Contrary to popular belief, the Turks do care about the general public.  
  
To some extent.  
  
I crept out of the little boy's room -- I knew it was a boy, because he was the one that made the child abuse call we'd overheard -- and took a quick look around. It's not like the movies. They didn't abuse him because their house was shit, they had no money, and they needed someone to take it out on. It actually seemed to be a stable house. Not the most up-to-date things, but close enough.  
  
I turned sharp when I heard a noise, but the parents' door was still closed. Oh, yeah. Supposed to go in there, wasn't I? I decided to take the forceful approach and just kicked the door in, letting it snarp hard back against the wall and come off its hinges. I'd had my espresso and energy drinks. I glimpsed a red-stained baseball bat in the corner. Sonofabitch. The man of the house, most likely the bat-wielder, looked ready to jump up and crack my skull right there, but I silenced him with a nice left-hook, knocking him out of the bed and onto the floor.  
  
He were ugly, but I wasn't sent in there as the fashion police. I was sent so they knew what it was like to feel the pain their son had. I grabbed the bat and waved it in the guy's face, just a little preview of why I was there. Holding it like a golf club, I struck him hard across the right cheek, sure I heard the bone snap. Nope, not good enough for me. He ended up on his side, curled in a fetal position and looking very vulnerable. I brought the bat down even heavier on his ribs, and he cried out. I was so tired of whimpering and shit that I just brought out the gun and blew a hole clear through his head, watching the dark ooze of blood pool around it.  
  
Yeah, he was dead alright.  
  
I took a long look at the terrified woman in the bed, but had to remember that Tseng's words were the ultimate law for me those days. Yeah, Tseng ran my life while I was wearing that suit. Tseng, the man with the pen that signed my pay, gave me no vacations those days. We had to be on actual vacation for me to even think of getting laid, because if the beeper were to suddenly go off and his voice blared into my ear, just loud enough, anyone in the room would know who I was in an instant.  
  
That night, there was no earpiece or beeper. I had a perfectly nice-looking, vulnerable woman infront of me. I should have you know, I'd done it before, and I did it again. Took a woman against her will with a gun at her temple. I hated myself a little more each time I did this, especially fifteen or so minutes later when I pulled the trigger. Later, I'd tell Tseng the guy had put up a bit more resistance than I thought he would've.  
  
I walked back out, aiming to go through the same window I had come in through, but noticed something had changed. I always had a keen eye and a nearly-perfect memory when it came to my surroundings. The boy was now normally asleep, even after hearing all that, one of his teddy bears clutched to his chest. Strange thing is, it took me so long to realize I'd done something good that night. By that time, I'd jumped back out the window and started for the van parked a ways down the street. But I got stopped, specifically by a sharp, female voice. "Rude."  
  
I turned, sort of nonchalantly, to see the rookie Turk, Elena, standing there with her head bowed and her arms crossed. No secret, she'd always had a thing for Tseng. She had made it strangely-obvious, like she'd wanted him to notice it the first day. She'd come in to replace Reno temporarily, and never left. She had this pained look in her stance when she talked. "You defied Tseng's one rule. He'd told us one thing: Don't let anyone live if they saw you. And I know I heard a shot after all the noise. Someone saw you, Rude, but you left the kid alive, I can tell."  
  
I paused, staring hard at her. She could have felt me easily, but she showed what we taught her: The mask of stoicness. She made a great replacement. I polished my gun with the end of my suit, taking my sweet time. When I finally spoke, I used my chilling voice, the one that made Reno flinch madly most times. "I lived that kid's childhood. I got through it by doing what I just did to my own parents and leaving to the streets. I just made that kid insanely happy in the long-run, I know it. I'm not about to go back in there and kill him."  
  
And that was all I said. We both kind of started back to the van at our own pace. Tseng snapped awake as soon as I opened the door, probably as tired as I was. We'd been pulled from a dead-sleep for this one. Tseng's eyes were heavy on me, but lightened up as soon as Elena hopped in the back seat. About then, he asked for a minor mission report. I kept my silence.  
  
Elena was the one who spoke. "Kid saw Rude when he went in. We followed your orders and terminated all three. I'll put in a call to the Force tomorrow morning and tell them we covered it." Tseng nodded in affirmation and we started off.  
  
Elena never knew, that night, that her simple act of sympathy saved my career. 


End file.
